This has been a hard message to write. We’ve all watched in horror as the Flint water crisis played out. We’ve been horrified, outraged, and demanded action. Now we’re faced with a really gut-wrenching choice: Whether or not to back an amendment to a truly dirty Senate Energy bill that does a truly virtuous thing by fixing Flint’s Pipes. I’m forced to decide that in this time of climate chaos, this is not a fair choice – and that we can’t allow our so-called friends to keep jerking us around like this. This post is my declaration of war on the Climate Moderate — not because I oppose money for Flint’s water system, but because we have to sop waiting for a more convenient hour to get serious about leaving fossil fuels in the ground.

Let’s back up: When the story really broke this January about Flint, most of the early energy went into one of two places

We must do something to get people clean water to drink when they have none — and it’s a blessing that those who can, have done something to make that happen. It’s satisfying, maybe even Right (with a capital R) to swing the sword and say ‘let justice be done’ on men like Snyder — who have for years hidden their racism, sexism and drive to annihilate life behind a veneer of fiscal responsibility and paternalistic fiduciary protectionism.*

Understand, I have nothing against extending tax credits for wind and solar, the Land and Water Conservation fund and most especially nothing against fixing Flint’s pipes. In fact, it’s exactly what we’ve been calling for. The problem is that the Senate Democrats are once again negotiating with the fossil fuel industry. And just like negotiating with terrorists or slave traders, there is literally NO WAY that can work.

Given that clear math, you’d think this is the last thing that any so-called climate change activist would want to expand or expedite use of methane gas and gas infrastructure in the U.S.

But that’s exactly what Senate Democrats are gleefully negotiating right this minute. If you call them (and you should) these Senators or their staff will tell you that this is a Bi-partisan bill – like it’s a badge of honor to win the vote of Senator Inhofe, who famously tossed a snowball on the Senate floor to ‘prove’ that climate change is a hoax. They’ll tell you that the Senate has not passed an energy bill since 2007, when GW Bush was president; Which is both true and appalling. They’ll tell you this is a good opportunity, for them — our blessed saviors elected with slightly less fossil fuel money than their damned counterparts — to negotiate a deal that will ultimately benefit our communities, even if they have to trade a few souls along the way.

The children of Flint must have clean water. I do not deny it. And I believe in it so strongly that I will not condemn any Senator who votes in favor of the energy bill for the same reason. But if they do, then the Senate moderates will have traded all our futures to a terrorist with a gun to the head of one innocent child.

God have mercy on their souls who vote for such a bill. I sure as hell will not.

* It’s worth remembering, here, that there is only a hair’s breadth of difference between what Snyder did to Flint and what our current Speaker of the House Paul Ryan proposes to do to more or less every American: slashing services, giving all the power and money to private corporations in the meretricious name of ‘freedom’.

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